Exploration is central to artist Judy Wright Walter's creative life, and she'd like to invite you along for the ride.
Walter's new one-woman exhibit at the Regional Arts Center in downtown Texarkana highlights the way she's comfortable working across different artistic modes, specifically from realism to abstraction. Titled "An Artist's Eye: From Realism to Abstract," the exhibit runs through May 12 in the open gallery space.
Although Walter has achieved enough success to have solo shows at the Silvermoon on Broad and in Hope, Ark., at the Southwest Arkansas Arts Council, she finds now that her sense of what constitutes art is ever-growing. She's not an artist who sits still.
"From my earliest paintings in oil and watercolor representational art, I have been an explorer, trying different techniques and styles and thoroughly enjoying the adventure. Just as I am inspired by all forms of art-music, dance, literature, sculpture, theater-each of us is enriched by the art around us," Walter writes in her artist's statement for the show.
"And my own definition of art continues to expand," she says. Her eclectic use of styles and mediums is on display in this exhibit. The artist strives to show how she sees the world by portraying this movement from the realistic to the abstract.
In Walter's customary self-deprecating humor, she writes, "With various distortions, enhancements and use of color, you may even laugh between 'What was she thinking?' to 'Oh, that makes some sense.'"
Sitting down at the RAC to talk about her show, Walter says she aims to present something different. "I want to do something that's really interesting," she said about her thinking.
"I thought, OK, what about showing them the artist's eye of seeing something realistic, a photo or a scene that you're painting plein air, and then show them maybe the next interpretation of that, an expressionistic piece or an impressionistic piece, and how the artist then took that realism and went to that," Walter said. From there, how would the artist see it and make it abstract?
Much of the exhibit proceeds in this manner, Walter noting she mostly creates Expressionistic pieces. Her bold use of color has always been at play in her art, as it is here.
"These are hung together so that the viewer sees the series. That's the idea," Walter said. In a way, her aim is to display how she gets from one point to another.
"A lot of them are recent. I did take some of them from previous works that are in somebody's collection, but I borrowed it back because maybe it fit into this series I'm talking about," Walter said.
It's not just local audiences who've discovered the joys to be found in her art. She won a Gold Award for the Midsouthern Watercolorists Juried Show two years ago. Her art was included in a group exhibit at the Arkansas Historic Museum in Little Rock. She's been a Party with Picassos signature artist, and you can find her art (including sculptures) at the University of Arkansas Community College at Hope and Texarkana.
The artist says that Little Rock show helped her focus on a particular theme in her work; in this case, it was nature, a new territory for her. And if you get to know Walter's art, you'll see that certain subjects now run through her work.
"I say in my artist's statement about things is that I have certain themes I really like. Herons are one of them. I love herons. Horses is another," Walter said. She grew up with horses. "They're just beautiful, majestic kind of animals."
One of her exhibit paintings depicts a horse, blue, surrounded by expressionistic dabs of color. She used a palette knife to add texture. "I love texture on the canvas," she said.
In all, with sculpture pieces included, a bit more than 30 works are in Walter's exhibit. One, called "Pollock Unpoured," has paint dripping into cans, as if the paint is heading back to where it came from.
"I'm sure it came in the middle of the night," Walter said with a laugh about the idea for this one, adding, "I've always painted with so much color that it's almost too much color. It's just in your face, let's say."
She's grateful for this moment in her artistic life.
"Where I am right now is I feel very fortunate to be asked to do a solo show," Walter said. It's her first solo show for TRAHC. "I think it's kind of a mark to be invited to do it, it's something to aspire to. It's our Arts Center."
It's a pivotal moment for her, taking stock of where she'd like to go with her work. She's looking for that "next phase."
"Now that I've done this series, I'm kind of at the point where it's time for me to kind of reassess and see if I want to do something new in terms of technique and maybe theme," Walter said. She'd like to get back to doing people: figures and faces.
But she's quick to add, "You never know quite where you're going next. You just kind of find yourself."
If you're intrigued to see Walter head out on such artistic explorations, check out "An Artist's Eye: From Realism to Abstract" at the RAC.
(Admission is free. The Regional Arts Center is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays at 321 W. 4th St. in Texarkana, Texas. More info: TRAHC.org or 903-792-8681.)